Retrograde planets in horary

kittymumu

Hi Minderwiz!

I wonder how should we best analyze retrograde planets in horary. I have done some research on the subject, but haven't gotten very answers.

This applies to charts have retrograde planets by the time they are created and charts with planets that will go into retrograde shortly after they are created. An example for the first scenario would be we see an applying sextile with tight orb between 2 main significators, but one of them is retrograding. Should we conclude that the retrograding person is in process of changing their mind/pulling back and thus the aspect will not be perfected?

The second scenario would be similar but without retrograde planets in the chart, but one planet will go into retrograde soon. For instance, let say there's a tightly applying sextile between 2 main sigs to indicate chance of something happening. But one of them will start to retrograde soon. Can we draw the same conclusion as above by saying that person who is going to retrograde will pull away from whatever the perfection might be and thus nothing will come to fruition at the end?

This chart I cast for practice shows such situation. It's created to find out if person A (querent) and B (questied) will come into a relationship in 5 months. Here's the birth time and location of the chart, Oct 26 2014, 11:51am, New York city. As you can see there is a dexter sextile of less than 3 degrees btw Mercury (person B) and Jupiter(person A). At first it looked like there is a pretty good chance of relationship. But Jupiter will start to retrograde in a little more than a month after birth of this chart. Does that tell us that person A, the querent will pull away from this potential relationship eventually?

Also just wondering, does the fact that Jupiter shows on the right of the sextile makes person A the dominating planet? And if that's the case, what does it tell us?

Minderwiz

Let's deal with the easy one first.

kittymumu said:
The second scenario would be similar but without retrograde planets in the chart, but one planet will go into retrograde soon. For instance, let say there's a tightly applying sextile between 2 main sigs to indicate chance of something happening. But one of them will start to retrograde soon. Can we draw the same conclusion as above by saying that person who is going to retrograde will pull away from whatever the perfection might be and thus nothing will come to fruition at the end?

Assuming no other planet gets involved (especially the Moon) a situation where one of the significators turns Retrograde before the aspect is perfected is called Refranation, The planet that turns retrograde refrains from making the aspect and thus nothing happens.

What that corresponds to in the real world depends on the circumstances. A change of mind is one possibility but other situations can account for the lack of perfection. Here are just a few:

The person signified is a member of the armed forces and gets posted to a different place.

A family member (or a friend) becomes ill and the person signified has to go to their bedside.

There's a real world time limit for completing the action and that expires - action becomes too late.

The person gets arrested by the police

The person becomes ill and goes into hospital or is bed ridden.

The place where the event is supposed to happen is closed for maintenance.

And so on. There are literally thousands of possibilities and you can't be sure of which one will happen. Though is some of the cases you can make a guess. I usually say that something will happen to disrupt the process.

kittymumu said:
..... charts have retrograde planets by the time they are created and charts with planets that will go into retrograde shortly after they are created. An example for the first scenario would be we see an applying sextile with tight orb between 2 main significators, but one of them is retrograding. Should we conclude that the retrograding person is in process of changing their mind/pulling back and thus the aspect will not be perfected?

It depends on the position of the planets and their relative speed. If you cast a chart and find one of the significators Retrograde, you have to check whether the aspect is still applying. For example Venus at 19 degrees of Taurus retrograde and Saturn at 15 degrees Taurus Direct. Both planets are applying to a conjunction. You check whether Venus will turn direct before it's conjunction with Saturn and that it will gather enough speed to prevent the conjunction happening. In that case treat the answer as in the case above. Note it is perfectly possible for Venus to be slower than Saturn. That will occur around the degree where Venus stations either retrograde or direct. Even when it begins to move again it will still be slow so check whether the aspect occurs even if the station has been completed.

If Venus continues to move in retrograde motion and conjoins Saturn then (all other things being favourable) the matter will perfect. Indeed mutual application like this indicates sudden or rapid change.

Exactly the same analysis applies to a planet that turns retrograde after the chart is created. If there is application to an aspect in the original chart then refranation will occur. If the change in direction allows the other significator to catch up then the matter will be perfected. The requirement is that an aspect must be applying when the chart was created or separating when the chart was created (in the second case),

kittymumu said:
This chart I cast for practice shows such situation. It's created to find out if person A (querent) and B (questied) will come into a relationship in 5 months. Here's the birth time and location of the chart, Oct 26 2014, 11:51am, New York city. As you can see there is a dexter sextile of less than 3 degrees btw Mercury (person B) and Jupiter(person A). At first it looked like there is a pretty good chance of relationship. But Jupiter will start to retrograde in a little more than a month after birth of this chart. Does that tell us that person A, the querent will pull away from this potential relationship eventually?

The aspect will perfect so that is the end of the matter. All planets will change direction at some point (apart from Sun and Moon) you can't
substitute a later chart to look at the future of the relationship, that's a different question. Even if that question were asked you would still conclude that the relationship is sound. If you want to look at future developments you would usually look at aspects of the Moon. Occasionally movements of the significator before perfection are useful. Only consider them just after perfection of one of them is about to change signs - and that really is Moon, Mercuryor Venus and possibly Mars if it's in the last degree of the sign. Such movements might indicate that perfection comes with a change of circumstances but be careful in using it.

kittymumu said:
Also just wondering, does the fact that Jupiter shows on the right of the sextile makes person A the dominating planet? And if that's the case, what does it tell us?

That's a good question. Dominating planets lying earlier in the zodiac are a Hellenistic concept (and I think a useful one in helping to determine which planet comes out of an aspect best). But they did not have a system of horary astrology, so I'm not sure it's legitimate to use the term.

As far as I can tell Lilly doesn't use the term. He follows Al Biruni in taking a dexter aspect (square, trine or sextile) as stronger than the sinister aspect (square trine or sextile).

Just to be clear there, Al Biruni would order the aspects as:

1. Conjunction
2. Opposition
3. Dexter Square
4. Sinister Square
5. Dexter Trine
6. Sinister Trine
7. Dexter Sextile
8. Sinister Sextile

This is general for Medieval and Seventeenth Century Astrology and not confined to Horary. However the table is useful in that it stresses the relative weakness of the sextile and that if you are considering perfection through a sinister sextile then you really should find some supporting evidence or conclude that it is possible but by no means certain the matter will perfect.

kittymumu

Thanks Minderwiz!! This is really helpful information you provided.

I didn't know that sextile has such weak strength in terms of perfecting aspects. So it will only be safe to conclude that an aspect will be perfected with a sextile, especially a sinister sextile when there are other information from the chart supports it right?

So right now my understanding is that while trine and sextile have relatively weak strength they usually imply a more positive and smooth energy in perfecting aspects. Conjunction is the strongest one, but it could be either negative or positive based on the question and how other planets respond to each other. Square and opposition mean difficult energy or delay in perfections. Does that make sense?

Also I am wondering if the following planetary conditions prevent or interfere with aspects being perfected?

1. One or more sgnificators are debilitated such as in detriment or fall
2. One or more significators combust
3. One or more significators in via combusta